


Matrix: Overture

by scribeofmorpheus



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Agents, Cyberpunk (genre), Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Language, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Non-binary character, Pre-Canon, Prequel, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Seraphim, The Matrix - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29705133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribeofmorpheus/pseuds/scribeofmorpheus
Summary: Taking place an odd twenty years or so before the events of The Matrix, the ragtag crew of the Leviathan receives correspondence from the Telemachus. Embedded in their pirate signal is an ember of hope. But what lay ahead for this motley crew of misfits is an odyssey filled with terror and toil beyond their wildest imagining. From the dangerous dalliances of forbidden love to a looming threat unlike anything the Matrix has ever thrown at them before, the crew of the Leviathan are about to embark on a journey, the makings of which will be legend.





	1. Fall of the Telemachus

The tassels hanging over the air-conditioning units danced in languid strokes. The office cubicles were bare, CPUs cool from lack of use. A single monitor lit up the corner of the room. Half a dozen guards were on the floor, immobilised.

"You better hurry it up, Dee. We're cutting it close." Knox said, peeking out of the fifth-story window. 

In the distance, fireworks lit up the black of the sky. A festival for the start of the new year in Central Chinatown was well underway. The festivities would provide enough confusion and ample cover if need be. Knox should have found relief in that tidbit of information, but something was wrong. Different. Security had been scarce, which Darion assured her was due to the hub's inconspicuous hiding place, but, for some reason, she felt as though the calm was simply placating her. Waiting for her to let her guard down before the imminent storm revealed itself from behind the horizon's curtain. There wasn't one, of course, but her hands wouldn't stop clenching.

Darion typed furiously, applying small cracks of pressure into the hub's mainframe, one coded attack at a time. He was good at what he did. One of the best, in fact. But even for him, bringing down this firewall proved to be a monstrous undertaking. "Almost there."

Baez stormed in from the hallway, shotgun in hand. Groans of easily the floored security team bled into the grey space. "Second volley's down for the count. They won't hit us so nicely if we're still here for the third round. I'm surprised we haven't been flagged yet. We've been here too long as it is. We have to move."

"Not yet"—Knox looked at her watch, the countdown still had some wiggle-room for the escape plan—"we have just under five minutes."

"We're gambling with time we do not have!" Baez said. There was an obvious agitation to his expression. He wasn't fully on board with the plan, but Knox thought he'd have swallowed his pride long enough for them to keep their heads clear while jackedin. 

"Then we make time!" Darion said, authority burdening his tone. "And if we do get flagged during the third sweep, then we handle it. Like we always do."

Darion was posturing, for sure. Knox knew him well enough to tell when he was putting on a front and when he actually believed what he was preaching. In this case, it was the former. But all that mattered was that Baez was just the right combination of anxious and aloof to be persuaded to fall in line. He just needed a firm push in the right direction. And with Darion on keys, that meant Knox had to do the pushing.

She walked over from the window, taking off her glasses so she could stare Baez down with the full power of her icy stare. "The machines have always been at our throats, that'll never change. But even you have to admit that after the attack on the depository in Thebes... things have been quiet. Too quiet. And we need to know why. _Zion_ needs to know why. So we listen to our captain, do our jobs and don't give smack about it."

Baez opened his mouth, his stance still rigid with heat. Knox cut him off, taking a tactical step forward, shrinking their breathing room to make him feel cornered.

"That's an order, Baez."

His jaw tensed and Knox could see the cogs of thought churning in his eyes. Baez was never one to back down from a challenge, but he also respected the chain of command. With a sour note to his words, he said, "You're the XO."

"I am. And if you still feel sore about this, I'm open to discussing this matter again, later."

Baez's lip curled upwards in a half-smile, "Only if you're open to more aggressive negotiation tactics."

Knox winked, picking up on his hint, "I know the perfect sparring program."

"Kiss and make-up at your own time. And we're in," Darion pressed the ENTER key in triumph. A series of files opened on the screen. He squinted, intrigued like a mathematician looking over a mathematical anomaly. His gaze zig-zagged to keep up with the array of information cluttering the monitor. Then, after a moment, he said, "Looks like we were right, there's something pulling major resources away from the usual patrol routes. Looks like the squids have been reassigned to oversee construction on something called the Agent Program. There's too much data to sort through here. I'll start the downlink. We can sort through this later."

He inserted a floppy disc into the CPU. The machine groaned like a distorted dial-up. A loading bar appeared on the screen. With time to spare, Darion scrolled through a few other files. What he was hoping to find, he didn't know. But, like his father used to say, miracles always made themselves known in unexpected places.

A word in one of the files caught Knox's attention. She tapped Darion's shoulder and said, "Wait, go back. There, stop!" Her eyes widened. "Oh, God. The _Persepolis_ , it's real."

The file displayed the schematics of one of the older hovercraft designs. Redundant. No EMP. Bulky, and built in the early years, when space was still a priority for crew comfort. Below the mechanical diagrams were a series of numbers, most likely coordinates for its last known location. There were also real-time images taken from a sentinel's lens showing irreparable damage done to the hull and rear bow of the ship. She'd never fly again, but that was beside the point. The _Persepolis,_ one of the first hovercrafts to be assembled in the bays of Zion, the ship whose crew was responsible for rescuing Geoffrey, one of the first redpills, was real. And her location was staring Knox right in her face.

Guilt, born of disbelief, knotted her stomach, and Knox felt an overwhelming urge to sit down. "All this time... _she_ was right."

Darion could sense something amiss, but he refrained from pushing the subject, he simply downloaded the files on the _Persepolis_ to a separate floppy disc.

Knox's cell rang, slapping her out of her temporary stupor. She fished it from her leather jacket and slid the cover down.

Yancey, their ship's operator, said with barely any pauses between words: "Knox, you've got high levels of sentry activity headed your way."

"We still had minutes on the clock." As if to prove her wrong, shrill sirens blared in the distance. Red and blue flashed across the glass and metal buildings lining the block.

"Whatever you guys found in there, it sent up a red flag across the board. W—wait... what in the hell? I'm getting some weird readings on my end. Whatever's coming your way, it's different from any sentry program I've ever seen. You need to get out of there. Now!"

"Darion, we are out of time," Knox said before she headed towards the elevator. The light above the doors was alight, the floor counter ascending with each floor lapsed. Someone was taking the shortcut. "Elevator's a no-go!"

The floppy disc ejected from the jacket and Darion pulled the plug on the computer. "We got what we came for."

The synchronised sound of boots on the ground reverberated towards the fifth floor in a dull echo. Baez was one level lower on the staircase, catching wind of the black-clad masses growing larger with each second lapsed. "Stairs are a no-go, too!"

Knox turned to the window on the south side of the building, overlooking a building in construction. The perfect place to disappear, and alternatively, the worst place to be if gunfire was exchanged. She mulled over the pros and cons and decided it was taking too long, so she shoved caution to the wind. With brunt force, she hauled an office chair at the window. Glass rained down like shards of ice. Beautiful and serrated. As they made contact with the hard tarmac below, they shattered into a thousand, glistening would-be diamonds.

"We'll cut across Sixth and Pike, it'll be easier to lose them in Chinatown," she told the others.

A barrage of fireworks sparked in every conceivable colour. Knox swore she could smell the gunpowder from where she stood. Just as she was about to take the leap across buildings, the elevator dinged as it reached the floor.

"We don't have time to weigh our choices," Baez cocked his shotgun. "You two go on ahead, I'll buy us some time."

A suit and tie—sharp-jawed with green-tinted glasses and an average build—stood in the doorway. He waited, patiently, almost testing their resolve, as if to see what they would do. Then, after a dragged out beat, he flagged down the advancing armoured police into the room with a wicked smirk. As the onslaught caused by metal rain loosed from gun barrels shattered countless computer components into confetti, it occurred to Knox that for the first time since she took the red pill, this mission might just be the beginning of the end for the crew of the _Telemachus._


	2. Chapter 1: Melpomene

**Aboard the _Leviathan_**

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

The loud knocking noises stirred Mel from her restless sleep. The metal frame of her bunk could be felt through the poor stand-in mattress, digging past tissue down to bone. Every part of her ached, but the feeling was soon forgotten to the adrenaline of a sudden wake-up call.

"Mel, we just made contact with the _Telemachus_ ," Pollux, the ships primary operator, spoke low, a hint of fatigue in her gravelly tone. Fade of the Zion cultural crock-pot tongue nearly washed away from years spent rarely at dock. "Jack-in in fifteen."

Mel stifled a yawn, "Be there in five."

Another thud awoke the space, and Pollux swore as loud as a sailor, "Son of a bitch! _"_ After a breather, she shouted in annoyance, _"_ Aye! Sable, don't leave your junk layin' about." Then, to herself, "That's gonna bruise."

Her receding footsteps echoed across the steel hull. A few other crew members began to bustle about on the other side of the door. Sable, the ship's engineer, apologized profusely. The clutter of a wrench or two followed after.

Mel stretched, popping her bones in several strained sockets. Shrugging on pants and swapping her white vest for a cleaner tank top took longer than she liked. She felt older than she was, but that came with the territory. Outside of the simulation, life was gruelling. From the same protein and wheat slop for every meal to the constant anxieties of being detected by squids, most days blended together, forming a long, exhaustive grey area of survival.

The _Leviathan_ always resuscitated from its growling asystole sleep the same way: with a lazy thrum and a gentle rocking. She walked out of her quarters with her head hanging low, eyes averted from the sting of the light. The motion sensors picked up on her presence, and with shuddering intensity, they came on two steps behind. Their dim glow increased in velocity, blinking several times like a gyroscope in a nightclub before committing to the second-best stand-in for a continuous stream of increased brightness.

Castor, the _Leviathan's_ primary gunner, sat in the mess area. Red in the whites of his eyes that dethroned Mel's. He spooned his breakfast with the enthusiasm of a scarecrow. It didn't help that he was built like one; skin the colour of sun-burned straw, tall, all bones, barely any meat. As the only Zionites aboard the ship, he and Pollux had an easier time keeping the slop down; an easier time eating it without the look of someone doubting their life's choices. In a way, the twins were lucky. They'd never tasted anything exotic besides the bread made during the bi-annual feast. Their senses had never had a dalliance with veal, or the garlic butter sauces drizzled over seafood.

Some days, Mel found herself wishing she'd been born in the undercity. Others, she savoured the odd occasion when she'd get to re-enter the matrix for vicarious and wholly materialistic reasons like sushi.

Castor stood from his stool, grabbing a cup from the wash-rack and filling it to the halfway point. He added a few pinches of salt, some form of spice and what constituted as vinegar to the broth.

" _Protein-a-la-protein_ , get it while it's hot," he said dryly, sliding the cool cup across the smooth table surface.

Mel took a swig, allowing the salt to overwhelm her taste buds before speaking, "You look like crap."

"Morning to you too. The kid was up all night on the rig, again." He spooned his last, big bite. "Lux told me to bring it up in casual conversation. She thinks you've been neglecting him. Figured I'd give you a heads-up. You know how she likes to blindside."

"Subtle."

"Guns and squids are my speciality, subtle isn't on my dossier."

"Touché."

Castor nodded, dumping his bowl in the sink.

Mel nodded, moving her cup to the side. On her way out she circled back to the original issue, "You get some rest."

He shrugged, "Squids don't sleep."

"No," she grabbed a spoon and tossed it his way. He fumbled to catch it, an awkward flail to his long limbs. "But you ain't gonna be no help staring down the aim module if you're seeing double. Rest."

"That an order, Cap'n?"

"Now it is."

Castor stood, rapping his two knuckles on the table, beating her out of the mess. "Talk to the kid."

Mel dismissed him with a simple wave of her hand.

#

The _Leviathan_ was a Mark IV hovercraft, designed to expend less energy and handle tight pipelines in a pinch. She ran a skeletal crew, maximum of six, minimum of four—one operator, two rear-end gunners and a pilot. Unlike the later models, the ship lacked the structural-engineering synergy to house an EMP component. A flaw that Sable had spent the better part of a year trying to remedy. As a consequence, his tools, and spools upon spools of stripped wires, opened panels and removed shielding lined the floors constantly.

Sable hunkered low in a space that anyone would describe as being too cramped for his large frame, yet somehow, he made it work, whistling as he took the blowtorch to the steel body of the ship. He had been Mel's second successful extraction from the Matrix. A mechanic in Detroit, intimidating in presence, yet surprisingly empathetic, always seeing the bright side in anything.

Sable finished up what he was doing when he caught sight of Mel, drawing her aside to talk shop, something about the air filtration unit. Pollux was wiping sweat from Daniel's brow—the lost boy with dwindling stars in his dark eyes, and Mel's latest rescue from the Matrix. She gave Mel an odd look, and right there Mel knew she was holding back from saying anything. In the back of her mind, Mel was thankful Castor gave her heads up.

Pollux moved over to her station. An array of scrapped together monitors circled her like a halo. Two were cracked, and the code moved irregularly, impossible to decipher. The green glow of the raining code emphasised her long, strikingly peculiar features, making her look otherworldly.

Since childhood, Pollux showed proficiency in programming, bootlegging glitchy leisure programmes to the lower levels of Zion inhabited by redpills who chose the sedentary life after unjacking. Eventually, she got her trial run working the docks at Hanger Bay 5. Castor tagged along, taking his pickpocketing to new heights. He was never far from Pollux, staying tethered to his twin like a shadow. They were orphans, taken in by Mel's surrogate father figure, Hesiod Baptiste, after Castor's sticky fingers wound him in an equally sticky situation with a commander. As a result, the three of them grew up together. Scrawny troublemakers, every bit as messy and dysfunctional as any other family; except they chose to stay together despite the dysfunction.

"How's he doing?" Mel asked, looking over the monitors displaying Daniel's vital signs.

His heart rate was elevated but within normal parameters. It was his cortisol levels that were a little concerning. He was jacked in, thin eyebrows twitching about. His jaw worked over in a way that signified he was agitated.

Pollux rubbed her eyes, blinking away the strain. "He's riding close to burn out. He's been at it for a few hours. Training sim flew by—shows a real knack for swordsmanship—but he's showing resistance to the Jump program."

Now that she had watched his vitals for longer than a glance, she noticed the erratic rhythm to Daniel's baseline. Her brow tightened. "How many falls?"

Pollux brought up Daniel's stats, acting as though she hadn't memorised the number in preparation for this discussion and said, "This is his fifth attempt today."

"But that's not the only thing on your mind."

"Castor talked to you, I see."

Mel folded her arms. "What makes you think that?"

"You never ask how he's doing unless prompted to."

"Well, it worked. I'm asking now."

Pollux sighed before continuing, "He's pushing himself too far."

Mel shrugged. "Then pull him out after the fall."

Pollux pressed the keys of the operator desk a little too hard. "His acclimation has been rocky, everyone can see it. He's having trouble completely letting go. You should talk to him."

"After," Mel got into her chair. It smelled as it always did, of old leather and the greasy tinge of living in a mechano-beast.

"Right... after." Pollux swallowed her frustrations, keeping a razor eye on the code. Then, she snapped her fingers towards the chair opposite Daniel, "It's time."

"How we looking?" Sable jogged over to Pollux's station, rubbing his hands together to generate heat.

"Green. Across. The. Board." Pollux said with each press of the keys. She popped on her headset and connected to the cockpit, "Cotton, how're we looking?"

There was a beat of silence, then one of the three rigged warning lights came on: green for go.

"Strap in," Pollux ordered as she grabbed a big jug filled with moonshine wine and decanted a small amount into her cup. Then she cracked her fingers and settled into her chair for the long sit-down period about to unfold. Unlike Castor, she was built stockier than his scarecrow figure, but they stood toe-to-toe in height. She carried a bulk of muscle to her shoulders and upper arms.

"Need backup, hoss?" Sable said, setting up the equipment of Mel's chair.

She shook her head, laying back onto the chair. "Should be a simple pick-up, in and out, whisper-quiet."

Sable began strapping Mel down, whistling a funk song from the Matrix as he did it. "Up," he motioned for Mel to lift her head and move her locs out of the way so her headjack would be exposed. "Breathe in." 

Mel took a deep breath.

"You'll meet Darion at the underpass near Faxton Motel. The closest I could get you is the subway station a few blocks out. No agent activity, but don't get cocky." Pollux typed away more energetically, senses completely overtaken with her duties.

"In three," Sable said.

Mel took another deep breath, and after the count of three, she felt the odd pinching sensation that came after the needle was inserted.

In an instant, Mel's consciousness was whisked away with the brief sting of pain, followed by a floating sensation before the illusions of physics overrode her perceptions. With a jolt of adrenaline, she opened her eyes, and she was no longer laying on the ratty chair, breathing the slightly burnt smell of the air filtration systems and being a few degrees north of chilly. Now, she was dressed in clothes without holes, and her skin smelled of nothing as she sat in the subway, a lost face in the crowd.


End file.
